Today's wireless communications technologies offer different radio access networks for a subscriber to connect to the core communications network. These different access networks include 3GPP access networks, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) networks and LTE access networks, and non-3GPP access networks, such as Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microware Access (WiMAX) networks. A user terminal, also known as user equipment (UE), is often equipped with multiple interfaces that allow the user terminal to communicate with the core network via different access networks.
A user may also subscribe to different services. Based on the subscribed services, the user may be classified into one of different user classes. For example, the user could be classified to the “gold,” “silver,” or “bronze” user class, depending on the subscribed services. Different user classes have different priorities, different cost structures, and different Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. Subscribers assigned to a “gold” user class pay more than those of “silver” or “bronze” user class in return for faster connections, higher QoS, and more reliable services.
User terminals within the same geographic area compete for the network resources of the same access network. Regardless what services a user may subscribe to, the user may be denied service if the access network does not have enough resources to support the requested service. For example, user terminal A may be subscribed to a premium service, which assigns him to the “gold” user class and be granted access to a video streaming application that has a high QoS requirement. When user terminal A initiates a new video streaming service, the service initiation request may be denied if the access network is congested, even though user terminal A belongs to the “gold” user class and should be given a higher priority than those to whom the network resources are currently allocated.
In some scenarios, a user terminal of ultra importance may require exclusive use of the network resources in a particular access network. Other users of this particular access network need to be offloaded to alternate access networks.
Accordingly, there is a need to prioritize users and offload users from one access network to alternate access networks based on priorities.